Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 186
(JNS) - Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump and adviser in his first administration, held a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. A picture distributed by the Israeli Prime Minister's Office showed that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer joined for the Israeli side, while Kushner was accompanied by Aryeh Lightstone, a senior adviser to Trump's special Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff. Kushner touched down in Tel Aviv on Sunday...
(JNS) — Archaeologists in Israel’s Jezreel Valley have discovered the country’s oldest known winepress and other Canaanite items in Tel Meggido, where groundwork on a new road unearthed the artifacts, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Wednesday. The winepress, which is 5,000 years old, and other items found “instruct us about everyday domestic Canaanite worship taking place outside Tel Megiddo,” said the IAA. The finds will be displayed at the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of the Land of Israel in...
(JNS) — Hundreds of Jewish community leaders from across the globe will gather in Jerusalem next week for a meeting of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Board of Governors, focusing on reconstruction and rehabilitation plans for northern and southern Israel in the wake of the country’s multi-front war over the past two years. The meeting, held on Nov. 2-4, discussed programs to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel and to combat growing antisemitism worldwide, the Jewish Agency said in a statement on Thursday. J.A. Executive Chairman Maj. Gen....
(JNS) — An Israeli medical delegation is heading to Jamaica to provide humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean island nation in the aftermath of last week’s Hurricane Melissa, Jerusalem’s health and foreign ministries announced on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is directing the team to help the local population recover from the devastating Atlantic Ocean storm, which according to Reuters took the lives of 32 people in Jamaica and 43 in Haiti as of Wednesday, with billions in economic damage. The team, led by Health Minis...
(JNS) - Freed Israeli-Russian hostage Elizabeth Tsurkov said on Wednesday that Jerusalem's assassination campaign targeting top Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian terrorists contributed to hear release from captivity. Tsurkov, who was held for two and a half years by Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah in Iraq, told The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday that she believes the IDF military campaign "rattled" the terrorist leaders, leading them to view their captive as a liability. The...
(JNS) - Thousands of Israelis paid their last respects to Israel Defense Forces Col. Asaf Hamami on Tuesday at the Kiryat Shaul Military Cemetery in Tel Aviv, two days after his body was released from Gaza by Hamas. Hamami, who commanded the Southern Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces' Gaza Division, was killed defending Kibbutz Nirim from the Hamas-led terrorist invasion on Oct. 7, 2023. He became the most senior officer to have been taken hostage during the massacre. His remains were held...
(JNS) — The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany on Wednesday settled with Germany’s Finance Ministry a $1.08 billion increase in home-care funding for Holocaust survivors for 2026, the largest budget for survivor home care in the organization’s history. The supplemental payments will go to more than 127,000 Holocaust survivors around the world, according to the Claims Conference. With the average age of survivors increasing from 86 in 2018 to 88.5 in 2024, the health needs of the survivors have become greater, with increased co...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday night that he has directed the U.S. Department of War, his rebrand of the U.S. Department of Defense, to begin testing nuclear weapons “immediately,” after Russia and China have conducted recent tests. “The United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my first term in office,” Trump stated. “Because of the tremendous destructive power, I hated to do it but had no choice.” Tr...
(JNS) — Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi submitted her letter of resignation to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir at a meeting on Friday. Her resignation came after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that he intended to fire her. “In light of the severity of the suspicions and the sensitivity of the role of the [Military Advocate General] in charge of enforcing the law and setting legal norms throughout the IDF, the Minister of Defense intends to begin the process of appointing a new Military Adv...
(JNS) — An Assyrian inscription on a pottery sherd over a possible tax revolt from the First Temple period about 2,700 years ago has been uncovered near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. The tiny fragment, about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in size, was uncovered six months ago during an excavation in the archaeological garden adjacent to the Western Wall, the state-run archaeological body said. It is the first such inscription in the Akkadian language eve...
(JNS) — Documents obtained by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza strip show substantial cooperation between Hamas and Al Jazeera, according to a report published on Monday. That coordination extended to the existence of a secure phone line between the terrorist group’s military emergency operations room and the Qatari news agency. “Qatar’s Al Jazeera gives Hamas a propaganda and psychological warfare platform. Hamas operatives, from rocket launchers to hostage takers, work for Al Jazeera. Terror propaganda is not journalism,” Israel’s...
(JNS) — The Hamas terrorist organization, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, returned the remains of two more slain Israeli hostages it had been holding in the Gaza Strip. After being handed over to Israeli forces by a Red Cross team inside the Strip, the bodies were transferred to the Jewish state and received in a military ceremony, the Prime Minister’s Office said. Following an identification process at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv, the PMO confirmed the hostages’ identities as Ar...
(JNS) — Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday passed in preliminary reading two opposition bills to extend legal sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. One bill, by Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman, seeks to annex Ma’ale Adumim, a large city in the Judean Desert, while a second, by Noam Party head Avi Maoz, concerns all of Judea and Samaria. The legislation will now be forwarded to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for consideration ahead of three additional votes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sought to thwart the...
(JNS) — Freed hostage Avinatan Or was discharged Tuesday from Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital and returned to his parent’s home in Shiloh, Samaria, eight days after he was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza. The Petach Tikvah hospital said that Or, who was freed on Oct. 13 as part of the U.S.-brokered deal with Hamas, had passed all medical examinations and would continue his rehabilitation through its unit for ex-captives. “Beilinson will continue to accompany Avinatan and his family, who will receive all the support they need,...
(JNS) — Freed Hamas hostages Eitan Horn and Nimrod Cohen were discharged on Thursday from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Ichilov Hospital, three days after returning to Israel under the truce deal that secured their release after more than 700 days in captivity in the Gaza Strip. Sourasky Medical Center said the ex-captives completed all the required medical evaluations before their release and that medical teams would continue to accompany them and their families during their recovery. Horn, 38, was released to his family’s home in the c...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman took to the stage on Saturday in Jerusalem to perform a rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s hit rock song, “Sweet Home Alabama.” American comedian and actor Elon Gold led the ensemble, singing “Sweet Home Yerushalayim” (“Jerusalem” in Hebrew) over the catchy chorus. Huckabee expertly pulled off the song’s funky bass line on electric bass, with Friedman accompanying the group on electric guitar. The performance was shared on X by Eli Beer, president a...
(JNS) - "My life, my life," cried out Einav Zangauker, embracing her son, Matan, for the first time in one of many emotional moments, as the 20 living hostages embraced their joyful families upon their return to Israel after 738 days in Hamas captivity. Hamas kidnapped Matan and his girlfriend Ilana Gritzewsky from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. On Dec. 7, 2024, Hamas published a letter that it said was from Matan. "We are still alive. We want to return safely before we go...
(JNS) — The Trump administration is pushing ahead with the second phase of its Gaza peace plan, aiming to rebuild the southern city of Rafah, Israeli media reported on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials. According to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, the aim is to create a “day-after” model for life in the Gaza Strip. Despite incomplete progress in returning Israeli hostages—only nine of the 28 bodies held by Hamas have been recovered—advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly said that the United States plans to begin reconstruction...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces released a never-before-seen picture on Thursday showing the slain body of Yahya Sinwar, marking one year since IDF soldiers killed the Hamas terrorist mastermind in the Gaza Strip. The photo shows former IDF Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, former Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk and Gaza Division chief Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram standing near Sinwar's body on Oct. 17, 2024, a day after he had been killed in southern Gaza. The...
(JNS) — Eli Sharabi, a former Israeli hostage held by Hamas in Gaza, is being featured on the cover of TIME magazine that hits newsstands on Oct. 27. An excerpt of his memoir, documenting his survival of 491 days of captivity in the Strip, was published online on Oct. 1. “As they dragged me out, I called out to my girls, “I’ll be back.” I had to believe that. But that was the last time I ever saw them. I didn’t know I should have said goodbye, forever,” said the 53-year-old Be’eri reside...
(JNS) — In his first interview since announcing earlier in the day the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the “world has come together around this deal.” Calling it a “great honor” to participate in the deal that will see all of the hostages both living and dead returned from Gaza in the coming days, Trump thanked members of his administration, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, senior adviser Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and V...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to join world leaders in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to finalize the U.S.-brokered deal aimed at ending the war on Hamas. The Sharm el-Sheikh summit “will soon begin with the participation of 30 countries and international and regional organizations, to celebrate the signing of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip,” a spokesman for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s office told Arabic media. In addition to Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ministry of Religious Services is prepared to receive the remains of “between one and 28” slain hostages as part of the agreement with Hamas in Gaza, director-general Yehudah Avidan said on Sunday. Despite expectations, no one yet knows how many hostages’ bodies will be handed over by the terrorist group before the deadline of 6 a.m. on Monday, Avidan told Kan Reshet Bet radio. A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross will carry out an initial identification process after receiving the bodies, according...
(JNS) — World leaders from across the globe on Thursday welcomed Israel and Hamas’s agreement to the first phase of Trump’s ceasefire deal, reflecting both intense global relief that the end to the two-year-old war may be in sight and respect for the American president. Among those praising the move were countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia, who defied the American administration by recognizing a Palestinian state just last month. United Kingdom “I welcome the news that a deal has been reached on the first stage o...
(JNS) - Michelle Rukovicin, the most severely wounded survivor of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacres, married her partner on Tuesday night in a ceremony celebrated as a symbol of resilience. The IDF intelligence systems technician, who was critically injured defending Kissufim base from Hamas terrorists and spent three months in a coma, wed her boyfriend of five years, Rinat Kasimov, the partner who remained at her side throughout her grueling recovery. She was struck by seven bullets, wounde...
